Holding on for Tonight
by TheSociopathicEngineer
Summary: The Autobots have returned to Cybertron the victors of the war. Now they are struggling to gain the planet back from the clutches of the Ring Master; the strongest enemy they have ever faced. They must realize that their victory lies in the little black and white femme that stands to the right of their enemy. They must move quickly, for she is only holding on for tonight. M
**.**

Holding on for Tonight

 **Everything Will Change**

* * *

 _Everything will change,_

 _Nothing stays the same,_

 _Nobody here's perfect_

 _Oh, but everyone's to blame…_

I awake to Arsine's wet tongue lapping at my face, as I do almost every morning. I groan sleepily and swat gently at the static hound to get him to stop. Usually he backs off and lets me slowly rouse myself, but today he doesn't. He steps back for a few seconds and then nudges me again. I swat at him a little harder and instead of backing of he snarls into my receptors.

My optics shoot open; something is wrong. I am on my peds in seconds and crouched slightly in a defensive position with my back against the alley wall, ready for anything.

My optics scan the alley and I find no bot or animal in sight. It was a little odd but not uncommon enough for it to worry me. I listen, but I hear nothing but a few birds chirping and a few voices in the distance.

There is nothing. Nothing but me and Arsine.

I look down at my static hound and find him poised and snarling at the entrance of the alley to the right of us. The illuminated entrance doesn't hold any bot or animal either. I sigh and rise out of my crouch. Maybe I should go get Arsine checked, maybe his receptors are buggy.

I take a few steps towards him and reach out to pet his helm, "Arsine there is no-."

High pitched ringing.

Blinding White.

Pain.

I don't realize we have been hit until my back slams into the concrete floor of the alley. Sound suddenly smashes down on me like a heavy wave of water and I can hear everything. The screams. And another explosion.

I gasp and crinch as I attempt to lift myself form the ground. I arch my back and slip my hands underneath to try and remove whatever is causing the pain. My back is damaged, when I hit the ground something or multiple somethings embedded themselves into my armour. There are too deep for me to be able to pull out, I am just going to have to deal with it for now. The pain is intense but it is bearable. I roll onto my front and slowly manage to push myself up onto my hands and knees.

 _We need to get out of here._

I have no idea what is going on. Enforcers? No, Prime would never bomb a city. Maybe it's the Decepticons.

Shadows slide across my visions as a row of bots march past the entrance of the alley, one of them is holding a flag.

I freeze.

Arsine limps over to me, whining and he nudges me but I don't feel him.

 _We need to get out of here._

The flag had four black circles, set in a diamond shape with two diagonal lines and one vertical line going through them. The Rings.

 _The fragging Rings!_

There is only one reason the Ring Master would send his troops into a city, particularly one as poor as this; to recruit.

Feeling completely numb and suddenly painless I scramble to my feet and dart deeper into the alley as fast as I can; Arsine follows close on my heels.

 _But why the bombs?_

Every other time the troops had come here to recruit they pretty much would go from house to house and take a bot from each. Maybe they aren't here to recruit.

Either way anywhere the Ring Master's troops are, I don't want to be.

These alleys are an intricate web that could take you anywhere in the city, or _out_ of the city. That is exactly where I am headed. I know these alleys well; well enough to know the shortest way out.

Just a few more corners and…

"There she is!" The deep booming voice of a soldier above me on the roof of a building distracts me and I miss the turn. The loud thud of said soldier landing behind me prevents me from stopping and turning around.

Arsine growls beside me and I hiss at him. He wants to stay and fight and some part of me does too, but we could never survive against a Ring soldier, our best chance and only chance is trying to outrun him.

And the chances of us succeeded are extremely low at best.

I won't dare look back at our pursuer but I can hear his pedfalls becoming louder and louder.

My spark cries out in fear and I do everything I can to calm it down, which is quite a feat considering that my processor is almost equally as terrified.

 _What will they do when they catch me?_

 _Are they looking specifically for me?_

 _What the hell am I going to do!?_

Arsine and I power around a corner and push on as fast as we can. I am headed in a direction that will lead me back around to the exit I had been headed to before. The sudden turn shook the soldier a little bit but after only a few seconds he is back on me again. The turn is too far; I'm not going to make it. The soldier is so close I can hear him breathing.

A loud bang sounds from behind me; something hits the ground so hard that Arsine and I are literally bounced.

My pursuers pedfalls have stopped.

I turn my helm slightly and find a large dumpster had been dropped in the soldier's path, or maybe on the soldier.

I slide to a stop and look up at the top of the buildings and find exactly what I need.

Foxfire.

I beam up at him and he smirks back. He makes quick work of climbing down from the building.

"Hey there Bunny Rabbit." He greets, embracing me in a quick hug. "And you too buddy." Arsine barks happily at him and jumps up to lick his face.

"Where are the others?" I manage to ask through my pants.

"Heading the same way you are, if they aren't already out of the city."

Foxy barely finishes his sentence when other explosion erupts not too far from us. Close enough that debris comes right for us. I crouch over Arsine and curl in a ball to protect him. The largest chunks miss us, thankfully.

We wait a few seconds for the ground to stop shaking and Foxy grabs my arm and pulls me up.

"Come on, we need to get out of here." He tells me over the screams of bots caught in the explosion.

The three of us sprint off down the alley.

"What's going on?" I question falling in step beside my comrade. He shrugs an unreadable expression on his face.

"Whatever it is, it isn't good." He began in a dark voice that I only hear him use when he speaks about the Rings. "They have never done this before."

We fall silent and Foxy stops me just before a corner and we press our backs against the wall; Arsine quickly follows. Two soldiers are loudly conversing just around the corner and slowly heading towards us.

"What are they going to do with those younglings?" One of them asks.

 _Younglings?_

Dread fills my spark as I imagine they are talking about my friends. The ones that Foxy had said are almost out of the city. I bit my lip to keep from making any sound.

"They are being questioned, as per orders." The second one answers, "we find the femme no matter the costs."

 _Me?_

My spark falls into my stomach, what could they possibly want with me?

Foxy grabs my arm and he points up to the roof of the building across from us. I nod and with the aid of a dumpster we scale the wall and crouch behind the lip of the roof.

We wait and listen for a few moments, waiting for the soldiers to pass. We wait a few more moments after we can no longer hear them before we peak over the edge.

"They're gone." Foxy whispers. We both move to pull ourselves back over the edge but my leg doesn't go with me.

"Gotcha." A deep, arrogant, malicious voice taunts directly into my receptor. I scream as I'm yanked hard away from Foxy.

 _Why didn't Arsine bark?_

I hear my static hound whimper behind me and I see another bot has him by his scruff bar.

Something sharp stabs into the soft exposed protoform between my shoulder and my neck. I yell and try to struggle but my captor is far too strong. He pins me to his chest with one arm wrapped around my waist and the other around my shoulders.

"Bunny!" Foxy yelled as he is yanked in the opposite direction by other soldiers, I try to reach out to him but the world instead faded to black.

* * *

 **Many Vorns Later**

I can correctly and precisely trace the exact events that landed me in Optimus Prime's cage in the basement of the Autobots grand fortress, but I would rather not. It is rather embarrassing, besides, I have never been one to sit and sulk over things that I cannot change. I am more of the type of bot to alter my misfortunes in my favour through brute force and manipulative psychology. Though it appears I may need more than my usual strategies to get out of the current mess that I have made for myself.

The enormous blue and red bot standing before me with his arms crossed is far too large for me to ever out strength in a fist fight and the little pink femme at his side is known across Cybertron for her powerful skills in manipulation. They are truly a force to be respected. And I do respect them, but right now they are being quite annoying. I have an irrational need to complete missions and these two Autobots are standing in my way.

I push my anger and frustrations aside, my emotions have never gotten me anywhere favourable and they certainly will not help me here. When it comes to survival, real, unfiltered emotions are very bad and can potentially cost you your life if you are not careful.

So I wait. I sit here and I wait for one of them to make the first move.

By the way the two are standing there, with their optics shifting slightly and their expressions changing however vaguely, it is obvious that they are communicating through their spark bond. They are likely deciding how to approach this situation.

Good. They think about their actions before they carry them out. I like them already.

"What is your name?" The little pink femme at Prime's side, Elita I think her name is, spoke first. I figured she would be the one to break the ice. As a fellow manipulations master, when presented with a challenge such as myself it is easy to become impatient. Well _,_ I am a challenge _if_ they know who I am. I cannot be for certain that they know exactly who I am or not. I would have to guess that they do not, generally people who know me and wish to imprison me, will put me in something a little more durable than a standard energon bar cell.

Perhaps I am overestimating them.

I take note of the lack of anger in her optics and the obvious agitation in Prime's.

"Firefly." By the time it took them to decide who is going to speak first I had already decided on an alias and come up with a complete alibi. Firefly is an alias I have been using for quite some time now.

She is a pretty standard bot. About 1260 vorns old she works with her friend at the bookstore downtown. No criminal record, not many friends. I have enjoyed playing her through the vorns. Unfortunately, this situation will be the death of her.

"Well, Firefly, do you understand the severity of what you have done?" Elita questioned gently as she takes a few steps closer to the bars of the cell.

She is using a manipulation tactic. By acting in a similar way to how a mother would when informing her child of something they have done wrong, she is hoping to appeal to the child within me. The one that had an obligation to please my mother and follow her rules.

Obviously they do not know who I am. Otherwise they would know that such tactics would not work on me.

However, such tactics would work on Firefly and for the moment I am her.

I averted my eyes nervously from her and looked to the ground. I slipped the corner of my bottom lip under my teeth and clasp my hands tightly in my lap.

Show time.

* * *

That was easier than expected. I am literally walking through the Autobot compound, unshackled, unattended, with directions on how to leave. This is far too good to be true.

I had never believed the Ring Master when he called the Autobots and their leader too stupid for their own good, but at the moment I believe it.

I am one of the most dangerous assassins to ever be known to Cybertron with a kill count that is nearly equivalent in magnitude to the Autobot army. I am the right hand to the most dangerous bot on the planet and they are literally letting me walk away.

Though I cannot help feeling that Prime is not as convinced that I am not a threat as Elita is. He did not say a single word during my talk with Elita. I still haven't decided if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

My train of thought is cut short when I spotted a familiar face. Or actually two identical ones.

The Terror Twins.

Well know figures that have previously fought in the Rings before the first Fighter Revolution. I had heard that they joined the Autobots but there has never been any confirmation.

I doubt they would recognize me. I was merely a sparkling when I first met them and they were barely younglings. I have grown and changed much since then and so have they. I barely recognize them physically; it is their scent that tells me who they are.

Despite this I walk a little faster, you can never be too careful.

I am very aware of the dark blue optics that watch my back as I leave the building. This makes me suspicious. However, I don't put too much thought into it, this reaction may just be old habit that they gained from the Rings. If they recognized me they would have said something; or more likely they would've attacked me.

I push open the large glass doors at the front of the Autobot tower and I step out in the warm sunlight.

* * *

"Who was that?" Sideswipe enquired, his optics following the small black femme walk out of the building. Sunstreaker and Ratchet halt their conversation and they follow Sideswipes gaze to the femme.

"A petty first time criminal one of the enforcers brought in this morning." Ratchet answered gruffly, uninterested, "she stole something. Nothing major."

"Why?" Sunstreaker questioned his twin, feeling the uneasy he is feeling through their spark bond.

"She seems so damn familiar." It isn't her physical appearance that is making Sideswipe feel this way, but her scent. A rich, feminine mix of berries and sweet spices with a hint of something dark and sinister. It is the dark and sinister part of her scent that is nostalgic to Sideswipe. But he cannot quite put his finger one it.

* * *

I take the stairs two at a time. Not because I really want to be where I am headed, but because I want what is about to happen to be over with quickly.

I push through the door onto the ninth floor and I make my way down several interconnected hallways. I hesitate only for a second outside the door that would lead me to my destination.

I enter the room and I immediately feel a wave of hate and sadness hit me. I subconsciously pull my armour closer to my protoform to keep the emotions from touching me.

This room often is full of negativity; this is where they bring the Battle Cry champions. After killing many of their comrades, they are generally not very happy.

I find the little mech sitting on the couch in the centre of the room, staring at the wall in a sort of daze. He is young, far younger than what I expected. This bot is the killer of nine others? I'm impressed.

"Hello." I greet him as I take a few cautious steps towards him.

It is my job and has been for many vorns to meet with the Battle Cry Champions and inform them of what will happen. Where they will live, who they will live with, their new privileges, all of that. I do not really like this job but it is better than hanging out in the Ring Master's quarters all day; it keeps the boredom at bay when I am not on a mission.

His optics snap to me but I don't think he really sees me; he is just recognizing a change in the room.

"How are you feeling?" I might as well be a tape recording.

A hologram repeating the same thing to ever winner. I don't waste many words on them, they are usually dead within a deca-cycle anyways. Not many survive past the games. In many cases the trauma from the games is deadlier than the actual games themselves.

He responds by turning to look back at the wall.

I wait a few moments for him to collect himself and answer me but he doesn't. I take a few steps towards him and lean forward slightly to get a good look at his face. His optics are dead and his frame limp.

I hum. In part, in thought and in part to try and gain a reaction from him.

I turn on my heels and head for the door, ready to declare him faulty and useless when he finally speaks.

"How do you live with yourself?" His voice is small and weak. I recognize the tone immediately. He wants to die; he is ready to die. I stop and spin on my toes to face him again. I tilt my head slightly to the side in question, waiting for him to elaborate. This isn't the first time I have been asked this question, I pretty much already know how this conversation is going to go down.

"How do you go to recharge at night knowing that you slaughtered nine innocent lives." His voice cracks at the end and his muscles tense. I tightened my stance as well, ready for him to come at me with malice intent. "You go to bed wondering, what made you so special? Why did you survive when everyone else died?"

He stands on shaky legs and he turns his helm to look at me.

"And you." His optics have changed. The once dead globs now were filled with hatred. Hatred towards me. "You have killed hundreds of bots. For fun."

I let him take a few wobbly steps towards, I'm interested on where he is going with this.

I am not at all threatened by him. I have taken down bots triple his size with little effort and his words do not effect my psyche either. I know what I am.

"How do you live with yourself knowing that you are a horrible, disgusting, repulsive, murderous monst-."

The young mech's speech is cut off when an plasma bullet shoots past my helm and blows his off. I watch as his headless body stays standing for a few seconds before it falls to the floor in a mess of wires and armour.

I turn around, already knowing who had shot him.

"Young bots today, no respect." The heinous, arrogant, imperious, deep voice that I am so used to informs me.

I glance back at the dead mech; I wouldn't call it disrespect. I would call it a natural reaction to this situation. But I don't voice my opinion.

His emotionless dark maroon optics lock onto mine. This can't be good; I wasn't expecting to see him for a few more joors. He takes a few steps into the room, closing the door behind him.

"I heard you had a run in with the _Autobots_ this morning." He hisses, clasping his hands behind his back and striding into the room. I turn my frame and follow him as he makes a bee line for the high-grade on the table against the far wall.

"Yes, but nothing I could not handle." I inform him calmly, despite the mixed emotions that my spark is emitting.

"You were caught, _stealing._ " He continues as if I never spoke. Now I am on guard. This isn't something he would normally get so mad about that he would take time out of his day to come find me. Perhaps something else happened today that pissed him off. Is he here to take his anger out on me?

He turns to me, a glass of high-grade in his deadly hands. The same hands I have seen gut countless femmes and mechs.

His helm dips down and he looks up at me, similar to the way a parent would look disapprovingly at their misbehaving child.

"Please _enlighten_ me how tha _t_ happened." He sneered, putting emphasis on the t in that.

His mood could go either way at this point. Depending on what I say I could be waking up in the med bay or I could be let off with only a dew scratches, if any. There really is no in-between for him.

Vorns of this has made me rather well trained in the art of getting out of trouble.

"I was following my perp and I found myself cornered in an alleyway by two enforcers." He takes a big gulp of energon. "It would've been more suspicious to claim I was doing anything but attempting to steal food from the back rooms of restaurants."

He takes a deep breath and stares intently at the wall across from him, considering my explanation.

"They didn't recognize you." He says as more of a statement than a question but I know he is asking.

"No." I respond quietly, letting my optics travel to the wall that he is staring at. When I look back at him I find his optics trained on me. It is extremely unsettling and not a good sign.

I manage to keep my breathing stable as he sets his drink down and strolls over to me. His posture relaxed but his optics dangerous.

He is a lot taller than me. The top of my helm barely reaches his shoulder, so when he reaches me he bends down to look me eye to eye.

His claws grab the side of my face and menacingly scrap down my chin in a gesture that would have been loving had it been gentler.

"You got lucky." He hisses into my receptors lowly. "Next time, _don't, get, caught,_ understand?"

Pain explodes in my cheek as one of his claws penetrates through the soft protoform.

"Yes, Master." I strain to reply with a claw through my face. He stares at me for a moment and then his optics change completely.

He practically jumps back a step away from me.

"Great!" He sings, "now let's go, I have a surprise for you!"

He grabs my hand and roughly yanks me out of the room. On the way out he orders one of the passing guards to clean the mess up that is left of the mech.

"So," he cheerfully begins as we walk. Well he walks, I lightly jog. "I have notice how good you have been lately, besides today of course and so I got you a little something."

He gives me no more hints as we climb to the top of the building. We enter his quarters and he lets go of my hand.

What I immediately see is Arsine lounging against the front of the Ring Master's desk, resting soundly. This sight isn't really unusual, what is unusual is Arsine himself. The last time I saw him there was a large gaping hole in his side from the last time I disobeyed the Ring Master.

It is gone.

I gasp out loud and I immediately rush over to Arsine and fall to my knees in front of him. I reach out, not believing my optics and I touch the armour on the static hound that is replacing the large hole. I run my hands along the area, looking for imperfections, earning a questioning grunt from the animal.

I find none.

The corners of my mouth lift in a large grin. He fixed him. The Ring Master fixed him. Or, more accurately, he ordered that Arsine be fixed.

I turn to the Ring Master who is still standing by the door watching us with a slight tilt of his helm. There is small smirk on his face, I don't know if it is from amusement, or from something he is thinking about. I don't think he has ever understood the bond that Arsine and I share. I am not even sure he is capable of understand it.

But I am not concerned about that right now.

I lift myself to my peds and I walk up to him. I gaze up into his optics with a small smile for a few seconds before I dip my head lowly in a bow of appreciation. "Thank you, Master."

He hums indifferently in response and I lift myself to my full height. I turn and glance at Arsine again, smiling brightly. The large static hound has his head lifted from the ground, watching us lazily. He looks exhausted, he must have just gotten out of surgery. Seeing that nothing is wrong the large hound lets his helm flop back down onto the floor. I supress the urge to go over and curl up with him.

I look back at the Ring Master and find him looking at the hand held watch that he keeps on his hip at all times. The stubborn bot continuously refuses to get a chronometer. He says he doesn't trust anyone to go into his processor and not screw something up. I can only dream of telling him that his processor is already screwed up.

What is he in a hurry to do?

"Well, things to do people to _kill_." He suddenly tells me as he returns his gaze to me. He grabs my upper arm and he yanks me out of the room. I'm tempted to remind him for the hundredth time that I am perfectly capable of walking on my own, but I doubt it will do anything.

After several klicks of walking he leads me into his workshop or as he likes to call it his _toyshop,_ which he currently has full of bombs and bots making bombs.

"Everybody out!" He bellows into the large room. In record time the place is vacant and he leads me to his own personal work bench. Atop of it is an interesting looking device that I can only assume is some sort of weapon. He mutters something to himself and let's go of my arm. While still muttering he situates himself in front of the device and he begins to tinker with it.

This is a fairly common occurrence. Sometimes the Ring Master just likes me being in the same room. Not necessarily talking to him, touching him or even directly beside him. Just in the room.

This is obviously one of those times. Thankfully this occurs often enough for me to have things in my subspace to entertain myself. Sometimes he keeps me in here for joors upon joors. More than once I have curled up on top of one of the workbenches or on the floor beside his workbench and slept because I'm in here so long. I swear the mech never sleeps.

Deciding the workshop is an interesting place to explore I turn away from my Master and I begin to walk through the rows of work benches. I'm less interested in what these devices do and more interested in their aesthetics. I don't know why, but I find powerful weapons beautiful. There is something about knowing that it could kill me and leave nothing behind that is attractive to me.

Against the farthest wall from the Ring Master I find a cage of some sort. There are no lights around it so I cannot see inside. I look around the cage to see if there is anything to tell me what is in there. I find nothing. Strange.

I listen and try to hear any noise coming from within it. I step onto the edge of the cage and I lean closer to the bars to peer inside. I see the vague outline of what I think is a face. I just need to get a little closer.

"Come here Bunny." The Ring Master commands me from across the room. I huff immaturely at my wandering being halted but I comply. I steal one last glance at the cage, but the face I thought I saw is gone.

Once close enough to him he places a hand on my shoulder and he shoves me down onto the floor. Without looking at me he waves a finger at me.

"Stay." He orders before returning to his work.

Obviously whatever is in that cage I am not supposed to see. This of course makes more curious about it.

Obediently I stay put and find myself a few joors later curled up on my side listening to the Ring Master mumble to himself.

* * *

A loud voice wakes me from the recharge I didn't know I had fallen into. I immediately snap awake and sit up straight, ready to fight.

I find the disturbance to be Toby. One of the Ring Master's messenger boys. Basically his job is to take messages from one end of the compound to the other. Partly because the Ring Master and his associates are incredibly lazy and also in part because the compound is enormous and it would be a huge waste of time for them to make the trip themselves.

I glance up at said mech who is still working on the device and notice he doesn't seem troubled so I take the news as not being urgent.

The large mech jabs his thumb at me and grunts something that only he understands. I push myself to my peds and I face the messenger boy. He takes a few steps towards me and he hands me a data pad. Without another word the youngling runs off. I stare after him in confusion. Obviously I missed some very important information.

I glance over at the Ring Master again and find him unmoved. I take that as a sign that he is, at least right now, not interested in this data pad. So I open it.

I find a list of names, 232 of them. I recognize a few of them immediately as guild Masters. This must be a list of every guild that is going to send a fighter to next vorns games. Looks like they are already getting ready for them even though the last games were only a deca-cycle ago.

Uninterested in the data pad I put it in my subspace and I focus my attention on the mech in front of me. If my chronometer is correct, we have been in here for almost eighteen joors. I am unmoved by the discovery.

I briefly consider trying to fall back asleep but I dismiss the thought. The sudden wake up has pumped too much adrenaline into my system. I find myself looking at the cage across the room. I try to imagine what is in it. A person? A static hound? Whatever it is I want to know.

But I am not stupid enough to try and approach it again. Generally, when the Ring Master has to tell me something twice I get hurt. I sigh quietly and lower myself onto my ground again.

One of the only things that I am allowed to do without an restriction, is stare at the Ring Master. I think he actually likes it. And so that is what I do.

I don't stare at his face, I can't from this angle. I stare at the scars that liter his torso and arms. I don't understand why he doesn't change up his armour when it is so damaged. If I had to guess why he doesn't, I would say it is because the scars show what he has survived.

It's a scare tactic, when bots see the scars they realize that he is strong enough, powerful enough to survive in harsh and horrible conditions. I would have to say it works. It would be interesting to find out if he remembers where and when he got all these scars.

I don't know the Ring Masters past; I don't think anyone does. I often find myself wondering about it. Was he abused? The way he treats others suggests that he was. Did he have any friends growing up? Where are his parents? Who are they?

I cannot imagine him as a normal bot. With morals and common sense and a conscience. But I want to. It would make me feel better about the warm bubbly feeling I get in the bottom of my spark when he smiles at me or kisses my forehead.

It would make me feel better about loving him.


End file.
